


It’s All in the Way (I found myself)

by oppisum



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: F/M, Interspecies Relationship(s), Judy Fails Upwards at Political Correctness, LGBTQ Character, Next Door Neighbors As Greek Chorus, Queer Themes, Self-Discovery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-12
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-06-01 22:45:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6539572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oppisum/pseuds/oppisum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Judy doesn’t know what to expect when she gets assigned to crowd control at an Equal Love rally. She’d written her attraction towards Nick as impractical, impossible, but seeing couples who proudly transgress all lines of gender and species brings long-ignored feelings to the surface. Before she can face her feelings for Nick, she must first embark on her own journey to come to terms with her attraction to a predator.</p><p>
  <i>Or, in which Judy bonds with her noisy neighbors, attends support meetings, and watches ill-advised porn in the name of research.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> And in the distance, a faint cry was heard, like an echo on the wind: _“But I’m not even a furry.”_  
>  Yet here I am. Writing this. All aboard the sin train. Toot toot.

“Bad fur day much?” Nick asks as Judy clambers up onto their usual chair, less than a minute shy of roll call.

She pats down the unbrushed fur between her ears. “Like yours is any better.”

“ _Mine_ is an artful rumple,” he says. “Yours is just bedhead. What, lose your brush?”

Before Judy has a chance to reply, Chief Bogo calls for quiet. He goes through the assignments usual, with none coming as a real surprise. This time Fangmeier pull on the pig disguise for their undercover work.

“Officer Hopps, Office Wilde, Officer Miko,” Bogo calls. “Today you’re on crowd control and threat prevention in City Center Square for the Equal Love rally. Any personal biases that would hinder your ability to do your job?”

Judy looks from Nick next to her to the panda in the next row over, both shaking their heads. Around the room, the expressions of the other officers range from bemused smirks to condescending snarls.

“No, Sir,” Officer Miko says.

“Nah, I’m fine with it,” Nick says.

There’s a pause, and Judy realizes she’s expected to answer. “I- I’m fine with the assignment, Chief,” she stutters out. She’s never seen Bogo ask for an officer's opinion on an assignment before, and she’s not entirely sure why it's happening now.

“Good. Dismissed,” the Chief says. With that, he walks back to his office, and the scrape of chairs fills the room. Before Judy can ask Nick what an ‘Equal Love rally’ is, Miko has made her way over to them.

“Gotta’ say I’m impressed, Burrow Girl,” she says, she says, clapping a large paw on Judy’s back. “Didn’t think you’d be on board with this. No offense meant-- I was new to the city once, too, and it takes a while to adjust. A fair few of the peanut-brained alpha males never did. Bigots.”

Nick snorts a laugh. “So tell me straight up-- were the three of us chosen because we’re the cutest and fuzziest of the open-minded crowd?”

Judy winces, but far from looking offended, Miko laughs.

“A bunny, a fox, and a panda,” she says. “Yeah, I suppose we are the least threatening of this bunch. Guess they’re trying to avoid any reports of police intimidation at an equality rally.”

Equality rally. Judy wonders if they’re headed to some sort of predator-prey unity rally like Gazelle held in the wake of the Nighthowler fallout. That didn’t sound so bad. Maybe it would be a chance for Judy to pay some of her penance for making a bad situation worse.

At any rate, at least it’s not parking duty.

“Let’s take two cruisers,” Miko says.

Nick draws breath to say something, but Miko points a finger at him before he can speak. “Not one word about panda cars.”

“So I take it that means no bamboo jokes, either?” he asks.

“Not unless you want that bamboo shoved up your nose,” she says, but her smirk keeps the words from being too harsh.

~*~

Nick looks speculative as they climb into the cruiser, but Judy doesn’t say anything. He gets like this sometimes-- silent and contemplative, like something important lays just out of his mental grasp.

A paw covers Judy’s as she makes to buckle her seatbelt. “You know you don’t have to take an assignment if you’re not comfortable with it, right? You don’t have anything to prove anymore.”

“We’ll always have something to prove,” she says. “Both of us.”

Nick quirks a brow. “Wow, that’s pretty pessimistic for you, Carrots.”

She tries to ignore the softness of his fur against hers, the heat seeping between their fingers. It makes her heart pick up pace and a blush spread under her fur. It’s not normal, the effect he has on her.

“Not pessimistic, just realistic,” she says, taking her paw out from under his and putting the car in gear. “And what’s with everyone assuming I don’t want this assignment? It’s an equality rally right? I can get behind that.”

“Judy,” Nick says carefully, “Do you know what kind of equality movement Equal Love is?”

Judy shrugs and says, “Well enough,” because, no, she really doesn’t, but she doesn’t feel like Nick making fun of her for being a sheltered country bumpkin right at this moment. Most days she enjoys his teasing, plays to it and gives as good as she gets, but it’s been a rough morning so far and she’s just not in the mood.

Her phone died during the night, leaving her alarmless. When she woke up twenty minutes later than usual, she’d bolted out of bed and thrown on a wrinkled uniform, cursing loudly the entire time.

“Looks like the fuzz is late for work,” one of her neighbors had called.

“Not as late as you are most mornings,” the other had said.

After that they’d descended into a chorus of “shut up” and “no, you shut up” until finally Judy had lost her temper and yelled around a mouthful of toothpaste, “Both of you, shut the hell up and let me brush my teeth in peace!”

She’d had a split second to feel guilty for losing her temper before the chants of “Oooh, angry bunny! Angry bunny!” started.

There’s now a dent in the wall above her bed from where she’d thrown her mettle soap dish.

Her paws clench on the wheel, and she takes a turn with more speed than necessary.

Nick’s grip clenches on the passenger door. “You know, you’re really living up to the stereotype about rabbits driving too fast,” he says in a voice an octave too high.

Judy scowles but brings the car back to a reasonable speed. It wouldn’t do for a cop to be caught needlessly speeding. She knows they’re in the right place when she sees colorful rally signs and metal crowd barriers with officers already stationed around them. The patches on the officers’ sleeves say that all of the other districts sent men as well.

Nick apparently notices the same thing, because he says, “Huh, well look at that-- looks like every district sent their friendliest and fluffiest faces. Guess it’s a show of goodwill.”

“Goodwill?” Judy asks.

Nick unbuckles his seatbelt. “When these things first started about fifteen years back, a tons of police brutality reports surfaced.”

Judy knows her face reflects the horror that she feels. Nick climbs out the car, leaving her to stare open-mouthed through the windshield. That would have been around the same time she decided to be a cop, she realized. She scrambles to follow him out, then has to stop to unbuckle her seatbelt.

“I was already on the street at that point,” he says with a shrug, like it’s nothing. “The police weren’t so keen on freaks and perverts back then. Finnick dragged me to one of these things once, back then-- we barely made it out with our tails. Had to pretend Fin was my little brother and that we’d got lost on the way to his little league game.”

Judy is at a loss for what to address first in that statement. “What do you mean, ‘freaks and perverts’?”

Nick drapes an arm across her shoulder. “You really should learn to own up when you don’t know something, Fluff.”

“Wha--” she starts, but Nick uses the arm around her to spin them so she’s facing the exceedingly colorful crowd. Her eyes widen as she takes in the details of the mass of fur and sparkles before her-- a topless wildebeest dancing on a raised platform, a pair of male lions with paws and tails linked, rainbow signs reading ‘MY LOVE = YOUR LOVE’ and ‘right to marry now!’ and ‘SOLIDARITY FOR LOVE’.

At first Judy thinks it’s a gay pride march of some sort, because she can pick out at least four same-sex couples instantly, but then she notices the rest: a panther and a mountain lion with tails twined, a polar bear and a grey wolf holding paws, a capybara and a sloth tangled close.

Judy’s brain grinds to a halt. She doesn’t know how to process this. Even being from farm country, she knew about gay couples. She grew up seeing them on weekday sitcoms and procedures. She’d even discovered recently that Gideon was maybe not as straight as she’d always assumed-- “I had a lot of unresolved internal anger as a kit; I didn’t understand how I could be gay and not be interested in dressing fancy or watching musicals,” he’d said last time she went home.

But this… this is something entirely different. This is interspecies. This is everything she’d heard whispered about in the schoolyard, heard high school boys make dirty jokes about. This wasn’t something that was ever discussed in Bunnyburrow, wasn’t even something discussed in the city.

“Close your mouth; it’s unbecoming of a cop. Does this make you uncomfortable?” Nick asks, half mocking, half concerned.

“No, no,” she says weakly. “I’m fine. Just-- adjusting.”

“Have you ever seen anything like this?”

She shakes her head mutely. “There’s a-- a _movement_ for interspecies relations?”

“‘Cross-species relationships’ is the politically correct terminology,” he says. “But yes, there is. Equal Love is technically a movement for all unconventional couples, gay, transgender, polyamorous, and cross-species, but it’s known mostly for its uniquely vocal support of cross-species couples.”

A weak “huh” is all she can manage.

“She okay?” Miko’s voice comes.

“Oh, she’s fine,” Nick answers, taking away his arm. Judy instantly misses the warmth. “Our little farm girl is just acclimating to the newest offering from the big city.”

“Knowing about something and seeing it firsthand are two very different things,” Miko says, coming to stand next to Judy. “My first time seeing one of these after I moved here, I couldn’t pick my jaw off the sidewalk for a good five minutes.”

“P-people in Zootopia are okay with this?” Judy asks.

Miko and Nick both scowl, but it’s Miko who answers, “No, quite a few of them aren’t. Cross-species is one of the least accepted corners of the queer community.”

Judy nods like that means anything to her.

“That’s why we’re here,” the panda continues, “To make sure no violence erupts, particularly from outside the rally or in response to it. Our job is to keep both the demonstrators and the public safe.” She motions between the pair of them. “You two are going to take up watch positions on the south side of the square. Stay together and keep your radios on. I’ll be working with the other precincts to distribute personele.”

Nick gives a lazy salute and guides a still-dazed Judy away with a hand on her back.

“You have no idea what’s going on, do you?” he whispers in one of her ears as they go.

“Un-uh.”

He pats her on the head, and she swats his hand away. “You know much about the alphabet soup movement?” he asks.

“I-- what?”

“The GLBTQ movement,” he clarifies.

She thumps her fist against her palm because, yes, she knows that one. “Two years ago a bill successfully passed allowing all animals, regardless of gender, to apply for civil partnership recognition.”

“Good, you’ve at least got the basics,” he says with a smirk. “At this rally you’ll hear people refer to the community as GLBTQAC. Here’s the short version: that bill also allows cross species civil partnerships via a little loophole some lobbying group managed to slip in. But there’re efforts in progress to close that loophole, which would also cut off a few tax benefits for same-sex couples.”

Judy wonders if she should be taking notes as they take up their position along the crowd barrier. No matter what her feelings on inter-- _cross-_ species relationships, she never wants to to say the wrong thing and inadvertently hurt people ever again.

“Cross-species couples have been gradually absorbed into the queer community,” he continues. “Whether or not cross-species attraction is actually a matter of sexual orientation is still up for debate, but either way, for the moment the interests of both the gay and cross-species communities are aligned. Both want to protect that loophole and call for universal recognition of marriage.“

“What’s the proper...” Judy searches for the correct word. “Terminology?”

Clawhauser already had to give her an inservice on the proper language for transgender mammals a couple months back after she’d managed to stick her foot in her mouth. She's learning that it's better to ask than to play it by ear and have to eat her own paw.

Nick huffs a laugh. “They’re couples, Judes, not aliens. Treat them and refer to them like you would any other couple. Most of them refer to themselves as queer, some of them refer to themselves as pansexual. There’s no solid rule. Just be considerate, and you should be fine.”

She turns so she and Nick are facing opposite directions, with Nick turned towards pedestrian traffic and her looking out over the gathered crowd. The same flag dots the crowd over and over again, a series of different paw and hoof prints on a white background, each a different color of the rainbow. She watches as hippo with the pattern on his shirt playfully rubs noses with a rino and has to avert her eyes. Unease sits like a brick in the pit of her stomach.

There’s so many of them. She hadn’t known, hadn’t ever realised that there were so many animals attracted to other species. There’s not even that many here, realistically-- maybe forty clearly distinguishable couples, but that’s still more than she’d ever even considered existing. Most of them are in the same family, and next to none of them cross the predator-prey divide, Judy notes.

She watches Nick out of the corner of her eye, the way the sun reflects off his aviators and makes his fur glow amber. His face is tilted up to the sun like he’s seeking warmth, even though she knows the bright light bothers his eyes. He looks content, relaxed, like the ebb and flow of the boisterous crowd is nothing unusual.

“Nick, Judy!” a familiar voice calls. Judy snaps from her musings to see Clawhauser jogging towards them from within the gathered crowd. He’s wearing the same white t-shirt with rainbow prints, and his tail is sprayed rainbow with temporary fur color. “Hey!”

“Hey, Benjie,” Nick says warmly, “Fancy running into you here.”

“I’m so glad it’s you guys this year!” he says, and Judy can’t help but smile at his genuine enthusiasm. “Last year the Chief sent Delgado and Mavericks. Boy, was _that_ awkward at work the next day.”

Nick winces, clearly picturing the butch rhino and grizzly bear. “Yikes.”

“Are you here by yourself?” Judy asks.

“Yeah, my partner couldn’t come. But it’s fine. He’s never been too big on this sort of thing.” Clawhauser says, looking disappointed despite his words.

“So,” Nick starts, “Does the precinct not care if its officers are part of something like this?” His voice is so nonchalant that Judy knows the answer matters to him.

“Oh, no,” the cheetah says, perking back up. “We can be a part of whatever social movements we want as long as we’re not in uniform. The ZPD has really upped their nondiscrimination policy in recent years. God knows I couldn’t have been out when I first started.”

Judy’s considering asking just how far that policy stretches when Clawhauser says, “Shh, shhh!” He shushes them, flapping his paws. “Oxy’s about to speak. Ahh! I love her. She’s my hero. Well, I mean, second to Gazelle. I wish I could be that brave,” he fawns.

The raised platform has been cleared, and a timber wolf with blue, purple, and pink streaks in her fur takes center stage.

“Good afternoon, everyone!” she calls, and a cheer rises from the crowd to greet her. “I’m Oxy, representative for the Open Minds, Open Hearts community center. First off, I’d like to give a big thanks to the hard working team of volunteers who helped put this event together.”

She puts her paws together, and another cheer rises from the crowd.

She leans back over the mic. “Now, to all of you interspecies couples brave enough to attend today, thank you.”

Another cheer.

“I know at least seven couples too afraid to attend this rally,” Oxy says. She moves with a self-assured confidence that captivated Judy. “Seven! And of the dozens of cross-species couples I know, almost all of those who cohabitate do so as ‘roommates’ and ‘friends’. We shouldn't have to live in fear!”

“Elly? Ell, come here,” she says, lowering a paw off the stage to pull up timid looking pig. The young pig plasters a nervous smile across her face, but her shyness is evident as a whisper runs through the crown.

Judy feels her own mouth fall open as the pig clasps Oxy’s paw like a lifeline.

“This is my girlfriend,” the wolf continues. “Together, we’re one of the few predator-prey cross-species couples willing to appear in public. Today we’ve gained tacit acceptance for cross-species couples in the same families, and while that’s admirable, it’s not enough. We have to work together with our allies to dispel the cultural fear of differences.”

Oxy raises their joined paws into the air. “Our differences are something to be celebrated, not feared. We--”

The shatter of breaking glass cuts off her sentence, and a yell of “Go die, freaks!” comes from somewhere in the crows. Oxy pushes Elly behind her, a snarl contorting her kind features. Just like that, the previously calm crowd is a stomped anthill of movement. Larger mammals are shielding smaller, taking up defensive positions. A few animals flee from the gathering, while more still huddle in the center of the crowd, afraid to lose the protection it offers.

Judy and Nick move in unison, both running towards the hooded figure hurrying away from the gathering. The thick crowd of rally-goers and rubberneckers slows their movement, and Judy has to slip between the legs of more than one taller mammal. On stage, something is on fire, and Oxy is ushering her girlfriend towards a large polar bear in a black STAFF shirt.

“Violence attempted on rally goers; possible medical assistance needed,” Judy calls into her radio. “Suspect headed East on Redfurd Avenue! Suspect is a hoofed mammal in a maroon hoodie and grey sweatpants.”

She pushes her paws to move faster, Nick at her side, but the larger suspect is steadily gaining ground on them. Then, a large black and white form emerges from around the corner of a brick building, heading off the suspect.

“Halt! Police,” Miko calls. The hooded figure swerves to avoid her but is too slow.

Miko has him on the ground and cuffed when Nick and Judy reach them. The suspect’s hood has fallen back to reveal a bison who looks barely be out of highschool. “--You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. You have to right to a predator or prey specific holding cell,” Miko is rattling off.

After she finishes, she turns to them, hauling the suspect to his feet. “I’m taking this one back to the station. Will you two be okay cleaning up the fallout on your own, or should I send backup?”

“We’re good,” Nick says, and Judy nods in affirmation.

Back at the main stage, Clawhauser is directing the flow of the crowd, badge now on a lanyard around his neck. He’s pulled an inside-out black STAFF shirt over his Equal Love shirt in an effort to look more professional, but it does nothing to hide his rainbow tail.

A small knot of mammals is crowded around the medics, several of whom are draped in shock blankets.

“Just some singed fur,” Oxy says, waving off one of the medics. “Nothing too bad. I think Ell got a piece of glass between her hooves, though.” She places her paw on her girlfriend’s knee, and the pale pig leans unselfconsciously into her side, nuzzling the white fur of her collar like she wants to bury herself there.

A twinge of something that wants very much to be want aches in Judy’s chest, and she swallows hard. They look so normal, so content, just like any couple clinging to each other in the wake of turmoil. They make it look so easy to be together, even when everything about their situation screams that it isn’t.

The next three hours are a blur of movement as they take statements and keep watch over cleanup.

“I'm going to check in with the officers from the other districts before we head out,” Nick says. And then Judy is alone, forcing a smile as she deals with frightened cross-species couples who look just as afraid of her as she is of them. She puts on her best I'm-a-little-female-bunny-how-much-harm-could-I-do expression and assures a college student that they have the suspect in custody.

After an acceptable length of time, she heads off to find Nick. All she wants is a long shower and to forget this day ever happened.

Something crunches under her paw, and she stoops to pick it up. It’s a flyer sporting images of three cross-species couples, all but one, a leamer and a hare, in the same family. “LET’S TALK ABOUT SPECIES,” declares the heading.

Judy flips it open and reads, “Attracted to another species? Don’t know who to talk to? Come visit the Crospecies Support Circle at the Open Minds, Open Hearts community center in the Rainforest District. We meet every Thursday at 7 pm to discuss the issues we all face, including but not limited to discrimination, coming out, and self-acceptance.”

She crumples the brochure with more force than necessary, her pulse loud in her ears. She makes to throw it away, but something stays her hand. The wrinkled face of the hare stares at her accusingly.

Angrily, she shoves the ball of paper into her pocket and stalks off back toward the cruiser.


	2. Chapter 2

It takes Judy four tried to get the sticky lock to her apartment to let her in. She tosses her keys next to her laptop with more force than necessary and empties her pockets onto her desk, wallet, carrot pen, and balled up paper landing in a heap.

It’s a Friday night, but she doesn’t have the energy to do anything as ambitious as going out to take in the city nightlife. Instead, she flops face down on her bed. She needs dinner. She needs a shower. She needs to stop thinking about how being romantically involved with Nick would even work. An uncivilized noise escapes her in one long exhausted growl.

“What was that?”

“Is the bunny dying?”

Judy presses her face further into the pillow. She doesn’t even have it in her to reply. The noises of the Oryx-Antlersons going about their nightly routine is almost a comfort. One of them works night shift on Fridays and Saturdays, she’s figured out. She thinks it’s the once called Bucky, but isn’t willing to put money on it.

She forces herself to roll out of bed, barely stopping her from falling straight to the floor. There’s fresh celery from the produce market in the communal floor refrigerator, and she’s not going to waste it by skipping dinner.

Thirty minutes later, she’s freshly showered and sitting on her bed with her headphones in and a paper towel full of celery in hand. A year ago, she’d have been appalled by the idea of eating dinner on her bed. Now, however, she can’t bring herself to care. There’s no couch in this apartment, and she’s discovered at an unnerving amount of her free is spent on the saggy bed.

She doesn’t even have the energy to boot up her laptop for some Pawflix before bed. She can only stare blankly at the greasy wall as she skips over every song fifteen second in, unable to content herself with any of her favorite music. Most nights like this, texting Nick would drag her out of her lethargic state, but tonight the tenor of her thoughts stops her.

Instead, as soon as the last celery stick is gone, she gives up on her music and buries herself under the covers, not even getting up to throw away the paper towel. It’s not even ten, but exhaustion begs for her attention. She curls into a ball and hopes sleep will come soon.

It doesn’t, of course. She flips and flops from one side of the bed to the other to no avail. Normally she revels in Friday nights-- one of the few nights her sleep goes uninterrupted by her neighbors. Tonight, though, sleep eludes her for nearly two hours, and the old standby of counting sheep is out thanks to Bellwether.

Next door, Bucky leaves for work, telling Pronk “bye,” and Judy stares at the water stain on her ceiling like it’ll do a trick. When sleep finally does come, it’s barely more than a light doze, just enough for her to dream in a riot of orange fur and green eyes. She dreams of Nick’s paws on her hips and his mouth against her neck. In her dream, kissing him is so simple. There’s no worry about navigating their biological differences, just the smooth slide of lips and tongues as his hands trail down her body.

Judy wakes with a gasp that sounds halfway to a moan. She’s damp against the cotton of her underwear, and she clenches her thighs and bucks her hips into the mattress on instinct. Her hand is already moving south when the memory of what she’d been dreaming sinks in.

She jolts upright in bed, suddenly all too awake despite her lack of sleep. She hugs her knees to her chest and tries to will away the lingering images of the dream, ignore the way her body responds. She might be shaking-- it’s hard to tell.

Some mixture of confusion, shame, and frustration causes her eyes to sting. She balls her paws into fists and thumps her mattress with as much strength as she can manage even the tear begin to fall. She never wanted this, had never asked for it.

The city hasn’t felt this lonely since that first week, since she met Nick. She wants to confess everything to him, like this is one more thing he can fix with his plethora of connections. She wants her mom-- not over Muzzletime, but in the fur. She wants her mom to hold her and tell her everything will be alright even if she doesn’t understand entirely.

She hiccups out sob after sob, unsure what to do and suddenly more lost in her own body that she’s been since she was thirteen. Her throat will be sore tomorrow, but it doesn’t matter right now. She wants to wallow in her misery for a bit, have a good cry, then sweep all of the inconvenient feeling under a rug.

Apparently, though, that’s not what she’s going to get, because a knock sounds from the wall.

“S-so-ry,” she sobs out. She’s being too loud, she realizes. It’s three AM, and she’s leaning against a shared wall machinegun sobbing. She clasps both paws over her mouth, but it only results in a muffled squeak as she continues to cry.

“You okay, little bunny?” asks the one she thinks is called Pronk.

“F-f-fineeee,” she wails before re-covering her mouth.

There’s a speculative pause from the wall. “You don’t sound fine.”

All Judy can do is sniffle and try to convince her breathing to even out.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

That surprises a laugh-sob hybrid from her. “It’s three in the morning. You should be asleep, not listening to my problems,” she says.

She thinks the hears the clunk of antlers against the wall and gets the mental image of her neighbor leaning against the wall, mirroring her position. “I never sleep on friday nights, and it’s not like I have anything better to do. Talk. Is it the job?”

“Sorta,” she hedges with a sniffle.

“Gee, real enlightening,” Pronk says.

She huffs a tired noise. Her sobs have quieted to uneven hiccups, and the tears have left sore eyes in their wake. “My love life isn’t something you need to hear about.”

“Hit me with it,” he says. “It can’t be worse than mine. Take a shot. You’ll get a prize if you top mine.”

Judy thinks about evading or lying or saying she’s too tired to talk, but then she thinks, what’s the worse that can happen? Her neighbors get more noisy? So instead she says, “I think I might be in love with a fox.”

And okay, wow. Love. That’s a strong word that just came out of her mouth. Then again, if she was just in lust with Nick, this wouldn’t be as much of a problem. Bunnies sometimes do live up to their stereotypes. It wouldn’t be difficult for her to find a willing rabbit to take home for the night and work off some of her frustration. But this isn’t about lust.

Well, not entirely.

She braces for impact-- for ridicule, or judgement, or disgust. Instead, she’d met with silence. “Pronk?” she presses as the silence lengthens.

“Just taking a second to process,” he says. “Huh.”

“‘Huh’?” she echoes. “And what exactly does ‘huh’ mean?”

“Nothing. Just--” He snorts out a laugh. “Always thought you seemed too straight-laced for that sort of thing.”

She wants to protest, but the fact that she’s crying in the dead of night probably means he’s right. “Maybe I am,” she says, and she’s not even sure he can hear her through the wall.

Apparently he can, because he says more seriously. “Does anyone know?”

“No.”

“Does he know?”

“No.”

They sit in silence for long minute. Judy closes her eyes against a new wave of tears and tilts her head back.

Pronk is the first to break the silence. “It’s okay,” he says. “It’s all gonna be okay, little bunny. I know it’s scary, but you’ll be alright.”

“Easy for you to say,” she says bitterly.

Another pause, then a snort and a muttered ‘fuck it’. “I don’t sleep on Fridays because Bucky isn’t here,” Pronk says.

And that-- that takes Judy a moment to process.

“You’re a couple,” she says, finally putting the pieces together.

“What’d you think, we were brothers? What, do all species of antelope look the same to you rabbits?”

“No, no,” she corrects hurriedly. “I’d just never really thought about it before.”

“We’re married.” He says it like it’s a challenge.

“That’s-- congratulations,” she says. She takes a breath then adds, “I’ve never talked to a married cross couple before.”

He sighs like he’s relieved to avoid a battle he’s had many times. “There aren’t many of us, even if it is legal. It’s not an easy life, living in the open without apology.”

Something about the phrasing jogs her memory, how they’d said not to expect them to apologize. “You two...” she starts delicately, ”sure do fight a lot.”

“Most of it’s not real fighting, just bickering. That’s just us, how we’ve always worked,” he says. There’s another thump of antlers against the wall. “There are fights, though. Real ones. The social perception, the discrimination, the alienation-- it all puts a strain on a relationship. It’s part of why so few cross relationships work out.”

“Then why do you do it?”

“Because I love him,” Pronk says honestly. “And he loves me, and in the end that’s more important than what anyone thinks.”

And Judy thinks she understands. She thinks that she’d be willing to walk through hell to keep Nick at her side. She thinks foolishly that maybe she’d even be willing to risk everything she has-- her family,her career, the respect she’s earned-- just to have him. He risked it all for her, changed his entire life, lost friends and connections.

“Bucky and I went to grade school together,” Pronk says abruptly. “We both grew up out in the suburbs of South Savanna.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone from there,” Judy says.

“Typically if mammals get out, they stay out. It’s damn boring, but no one has the courage to leave.”

“How’d you get out, then?”

“Buck and I dated secretly in high school. We thought we were all secretive and sneaky, but in hindsight we were so damn obvious. We were crazy for each other,” he says, and Judy can tell he’s shaking his head by the rattle of antlers against the wall.

“What happened?” she presses.

“We were found out. How else does secret dating ever end?” Pronk snorts derisively. “I got kicked out of my house. His family told him he could stay if he cut all ties with me.”

Judy holds her breath and waits, too afraid to break the moment.

When he continues, his voice is softer, sweeter than she’s ever heard it. “But he didn’t. He gave up everything so he could stay by my side. We scraped our way through the rest of high school, then moved to the city together.

“But the Zootopian dream isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Lots of cross animals and couples live happily under the radar, but we made a promise that we’d never live a lie again. We’d already lost everything except each other. What did we have to be afraid of?”

“Nothing,” she says softly, even though she knows it’s a rhetorical question.

“Listen to me, little bunny,” Pronk says seriously. “This life is never going to be easy, especially when we refuse to apologize for who we are. It’s messy and it’s loud and it hurts like a bitch sometimes, but at the end of the day it’s worth it to be with the ones we love.”

Judy swallows hard against the lump in her throat. She wishes she could hug this strange, obnoxious, kind antelope. She’s just about to open her mouth to say ‘thank you’, because it’s all she can think to say to such a beautiful statement, when he adds, “Still, you sure didn’t make it easy on yourself be falling for a predator.”

With a loud groan, Judy flops back onto her bed.

Then pounds her fists again for emphasis.

“More power to you,” he continues like he hasn’t noticed. “I mean, you already managed to be the first bunny cop. Guess you were never destined to choose the path of least resistance.”

She closes her eyes and lets herself laugh. She laughs, and it feels like the first time she’s laughed in ages, like she’s shrugging off a weight she didn’t even realize she was carrying.

“Thank you, Pronk,” she says, and she means it. She closes her eyes, and feels the world start to sink away.

“Goodnight, little bunny,” he says, and it’s the last thing she hears before everything fades into nothing.


	3. Chapter 3

When Judy wakes, she knows without looking that it’s past noon. The mid afternoon sun is streaming through the window, illuminating the entire room in a warming glow. The clock reads 2:17. Normally she’d be disgruntled at sleeping the day away, but today she’s too well rested to care. She’s never slept so soundly in her year since moving to the city.

It’s a new day, and the bright sun emphasizes that. Judy stretches and slides out of bed. The worn wood floor is warm under her feet from the midday sunlight. She presses the power button on her laptop and pads over to the window while it boots.

Mammals hurry about their day on the street below, briefcases in paw or backpacks slung over their shoulders. The city never slows down, not even for the weekend. Life always moves forward.

A knock on the door interrupts her revery.

When she opens the door, self-conscious in only her sleep shorts and tank top, there’s no one on the other side. She looks up and down the hall but sees nothing. Then something catches her eye. On the floor in front of her is a steaming cup of coffee from the hipster coffeehouse down the street.

When she picks it up, the sees the black sharpie on the side reading, “your prize”.

She has a moment of confusion before she remembers Pronk’s words last night, that if she beat his love life’s complications, she’d get a prize.

Smiling, she shuts the door and takes a sip. It’s pure bliss in a cup, perfectly bold without being too bitter. There’s a hint of something that might be nutmeg or maybe cloves. It reminds her so suddenly of the chicory coffee brewed in the Burrow that she has to bite back against a wave of homesickness.

She wants to call home, but she knows she can’t, not yet. Her parents will know something’s wrong as soon as they see her face, and she doesn’t trust herself not to break down and tell them. She doesn't want to risk that until she knows for sure that there’s a good reason.

So, instead, she takes another sip of her coffee and sits down in front of her laptop.

She opens a new browser window and stares at the blinking cursor in the search engine bar. She has no clue what she’s even looking for. Finally, she types in simply ‘ _cross-species relationships’_.

The flood of information is overwhelming. She gets sites supporting it, sites condemning it, porn sites, fiction archives. It’s too much to take in all at once. She back-buttons and takes a deep breath.

This time she rephrases her search to ‘ _cross-species movement history’_.

The first result is Wikipawdia, and she clicks it like a lifeline. Instantly the flood of information dies down to a manageable trickle. She starts at the top and reads straight through the article.

“The movement only came into the public view roughly two decades ago when Oxybell Fangsworth, a nineteen year old timberwolf, was beaten for holding paws with a coyote. Enraged on by the police’s lack of interest, Oxybell went on to become a centerpiece of the movement, raising awareness and sympathy on her Zootopia college campus before branching out further,” Judy reads.

“Despite having had numerous death and repeated hospitalizations from violence, Oxybell, now forty-two, is still an active participant in the movement, which has steadily gained momentum.”

Next to the paragraph is a grainy old photograph of a hippie-looking wolf with a megaphone in front of a picket line. It’s Oxy from the rally, Judy realizes. Oxybell is Oxy.

She reads through the rest of the article, which details notable detractors and supporters of the movement. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Gazelle is listed among the supporters, but somehow it still does. Another section details the movement’s ties to the queer community and the various controversies involved.

Judy finds that there is some disagreement, apparently. Some people within the queer community believe that having the movement tied to them could lead to negative public perception. Others within the cross-species movement claim that they are not queer, while still others refer to themselves as pansexual. For the most part, though, cross mammals are welcomed into the queer community with open minds.

The complexities of it all makes Judy’s head spin.

She’s never thought of herself as anything other than a heterosexual female, and to be reconsidering that label at twenty-five is dizzying.

She thinks of the power of labels, how they can confine and define person. She also thinks of how when used correctly, they can make you feel like you’re no longer alone. Being able to mentally call herself cross is both terrifying and like a breath of fresh air. There’s a word for people like her, a word that’s more than a pejorative thrown around in locker rooms. There’s a word that makes the strangeness she feels inside her okay, a word that means she’s no longer alone.

Once, she’d thought of the plethora of words to describe attraction as unnecessarily confusing-- heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual, asexual, demisexual-- the list goes on, and she knows she’s forgotten some. She thought that she liked what she liked; what else mattered?

She thinks maybe she understands it, now. Yes, it still confuses her, but the words aren’t for her benefit, not really. They’re for the people who adopt them, badges and shields and signs that say, “Look, I’m not alone!”

Cross-species attracted.

Cross.

It’s only a word, but that one word legitimizes and normalizes the way she feels.

She leans back in her chair and lets out a long sigh. Outside, the city is glowing with the sunset, but Judy knows her night is just getting started. Her sleep schedule is shot all to hell, anyways. Judy Hopps does nothing by halves, and entering the queer community won’t be the first.

She opens a document and starts typing a list of words she heard and wants to define.

demisexual

poly--> polyamorous

twink

ace

Stone-- something (Stone Hedge? Stone Garden? Stone Wall? Stone Henge?)

queen

mtf vs ftm

hanky code

RuPaul (runway model?)

Bear

cougar (not queer specific?)

omnisexual vs pansexual

gray-A

She racks her brain for any of the other words she’s heard but not understood, then gives up and opens her search engine. She’s sure she’ll find more things to define as she goes along.

~*~

Three hours later, Judy un-hunches from over her laptop with a wide stretch that makes her back pop in several places. She now has a document five pages long with definitions for every turn of phrase and historical point she could find under the umbrella of the queer community.

She now knows that a bear doesn’t actually have to be a bear and that a twink isn’t some sort of snack and that closed polyamory isn’t something to do with the business hours of a sports facility.

She pushes away from her desk and almost staggers under the weight of the hunger that hits her. She considers the merits of showering then eating but decides going about the later first is probably the safest bet.

By the time she’s done with both and changed into a new set of pajamas from the ones she wore all day, Judy still isn’t remotely tired. She sits on the edge of her bed, and looks at the clock. It’s already 10:30, and she really should sleep.

Instead, she pulls her laptop onto her lap and props her pillow up behind her.

She bites her lip, considering what to research now. She decides to satisfy a niggling curiosity and types in ‘ _cross-species couples_ ’. She clicks images, and scrolls down through several pages of rally pictures and pleasent stock photos of couples holding paws.

The pictures make something warm blossom in her chest.

She changes the search to ‘ _cross-species kissing_ ’.

This time, a series of relatively tame photos come up. One is of a leamer kissing a meerkat on the cheek. Another is of a cow and a bison chastely pecking lips. Judy smiles then bites her lip.

She hovers her mouse over the safesearch option, then resolutely turns it off.

This time the images that appear are somewhat less chaste-- a lion pressed up against a wolf as they kiss; a fox straddling a lion with lips locked. That one gives her more pause.

She clicks on the image to enlarge it. She examines every detail of the fox’s face, eyes closed and lips parted to reveal sharp teeth. She thinks about what it would be like to kiss Nick, the way they would have to navigate their difference in muzzle shapes. The fox on her screen looks nothing like him, is a female with lighter fur and rounder features. Still, Judy can’t help imagining the feel of paws like that holding her and fur that texture brushing against her own.

She clicks on the link to view the website without looking at it’s name, hoping there are more pictures.

It takes her several seconds to register the red letters proclaiming Interspecies Intercourse across the top of her screen and the lewd video that starts playing of it’s own free will before she back-buttons so hard she’s surprised the doesn’t damage her trackpad.

She stares at her laptop screen like it’s betrayed her.

She starts to close the window entirely, but something stops her. Curiosity, maybe. She leans over to grab her headphones from the night and click the forward button.

It’s just another form of research, she reasons. Nothing in all of this has said how, exactly, mammals of two different species couple, and that might just be something important to know.

She scrolls through the website with a creased brow. The videos are almost exclusively preditor/preditor or prey/prey, and there’s no real method of organization. She clicks a video of a tigar and a lion, and watches without bothering to put her headphones in. She wrinkles her nose as she clicks through to various parts. Nothing about the video really does it for her any more than standard bunny porn. The setup of professional porn, the bad wax jobs and fake moans have never appealed to her. She’s always had trouble getting into porn when she’s not already turned on.

She sighs and goes back to the main catalog. She scrolls without paying much attention to the grainy still and is about to give the whole thing up as a bad idea when something catches her eye. Under a still that’s nothing more than a blur of gray fur and white curls is the caption ‘Wolf In Sheep’s Pants’.

This time she puts her headphones in before she clicks play, lowering the volume almost into nonexistence.

The video is shaky when it starts, a hand cam or a cellphone she guesses. There’s an awkward giggle and the blur of movement solidifies into a sheep who waves at the camera. “Hi-i!” she says, drawing the word into two syllables before she dissolves into more giggles.

There’s a snort from somewhere off camera. “I don’t think they’re here to hear us talk, Bells,” says a lower female voice.

The sheep holding the camera turns so a gray wolf comes into focus behind her. She’s already sprawled out unselfconsciously on a bed, bare apart from a lazy smile. The wolf laughs and pats the sheets next to her, “Get over here.”

The video is amature, Judy realizes. The real kind of mature that’s just a couple in their bedroom with a camera. She swallows and allows herself to turn the volume up a bit more.

The sheep called Bells does hurriedly, knocking the camera sideways several times in her rushed attempt to set it down on something. When the screen finally still, Bells kneels on the bed next to the wolf in only a sports bra and panties.

The wolf leans up kiss along her neck. The sheep lets out a breathy sigh and bares her neck for the wolf.

“Mel,” the sheep breathes.

Mel’s answering laugh is husky. “You did check the camera angle, right? It’d hate to have to do this all. Over. Again.” She punctuates each word with a nip up Bell’s neck, for all the world like some documentary about the food chain of old.

“I did,” Bells manages. She runs her hooves along the curve of the other woman’s body. “I didn’t make the same mistake twice-e.”

The last word goes up an octave at the end as Mel pulls the smaller mammal down on top of her. She captures the other’s mouth in a sweet kiss that rapidly deepened. Judy watches the way they work together to kiss around their physical differences, the way Mell tilts her head sharply so as to give her lover a better angle.

And they are lovers, Judy knows. They’re too familiar, too sweet with each other to be anything else. There’s adoration in Mel’s eyes as she looks up at the sheep straddling her hips. She cards her fingers through Bells’s wool, frizzing it into messy cloud.

“Off,” she says, tugging at Bells’s sports bra. Bells leans up long enough to strip it over her head before pressing her bare fur against her lover’s. Mel sighs happily against her lips and moves one paw from her hips to her breasts. Bells’s breasts are smaller than her partner’s, but Mel seems more than pleased as she gently kneads them.

Lesbian porn had never done much for Judy before but now, oh boy, now it had her repositioning the laptop long enough to strip off her pajamas. She considers leaving her panties on, but decides that’s a lost cause and tosses them over the edge of the bed, too.

On screen, the sheep moans softly, and there’s nothing fake or showy about it. It’s all real pleasure, just as her sharp gasp is when Mel ducks her head to lick one nipple. The sounds only intensify when Mel switches from licking to grazing her teeth over the sensitive mound, biting down ever so slightly.

“You like that?” Mel says, voice huskier than before, and somehow it doesn’t sound like the cheap dirty talk of most porn. “You like teeth?”

“Yes,” Bells breaths, and it’s all the encouragement the wolf needs. She flips them so she’s pinning the smaller woman to the bed.

“Yeah, I know you like teeth,” Mel says. She runs her canines along Bell’s shoulder, biting down just hard enough to drag a whimper of pleasure out of her. “You like having a big, scary wolf in your bed. Like knowing I’m yours and no one else can give you this.”

“Yes,” Bells agrees. She runs her hooves down Mel’s back, stopping to rub at the sensitive base of her tail. Mel arches, letting out a low howl. She guides one thigh between Bells’s, rocking them against one another gently at first, then with more fervor. She lowers a paw between them and does something blocked by the camera angle that makes Bells bleet her approval.

Judy finally gives in and lets her paw find the wet center of heat she’s been itching to touch since basically the start of the video.

“Now,” Bells says breathlessly. “Come on, now.”

That makes a truly predatory smile curl the wolf’s lips as she climbs off the bed. She bends down to get something, and for a second Judy doesn’t understand what’s going on before it registers that, oh goodness, that’s a strapon. Mel is putting on an electric blue strapon and fishing in the nightstand for something. It’s a bottle of lubricant, Judy realizes, as Mel pours some onto her fingers before coating the strapon with it.

Not that Judy is all that acquainted with Wolf anatomy, but she’s pretty sure the faux cock is rather smaller than that of a regular wolf. She feels like an idiot when Mel climbs back onto the bed and slides two lubricant-covered fingers into the sheep. Mel has a smaller size so she doesn’t hurt Bells.

It’s sweet, in an odd sort of way, and it also raises a whole new series of possible roadblocks in Judy’s mind. How much larger were foxes than bunnies?

Judy pushes the thought aside and runs two fingers over her clit as Mel nips at one of Bells’s ears. “Ready?”

The sheep’s only answer is to hitch one leg up around the other woman’s waist.

Mel carefully guides the tip to her lover’s entrance and holds it steady as she starts to push in. She gets halfway when she slowly pulls back out before gliding back in. This continues painfully slowly, steadily, until the pair’s hips are flush.

Judy presses two fingers inside herself, scissors them to see how far she stretches. She wonders if it’s far enough to fit a fox.

The wolf and sheep begin moving in tandem, Bells arching off the bed to meet each of Mel’s thrusts. They start off slow, but rapidly work up to a frantic rhythm. Mel grinds her hips down into the sheep with each thrust, moving in small circles.

Bells wraps her legs around the wolf’s hips, arching her lower body off the bed. Mel lets out a feral snarl that’s almost enough to scare Judy, but seems to have the opposite effect on Bells. The sheep only moans louder, twining her hooves in the fur at the nape of her lover’s neck.

Mel leans down on her elbows, scooping her arms under Bell and leaving her up, up and back until she sits astride her lover one more. Mel howls as she rocks up into her lover, hands dragging her up and down on the blue cock.

Bells gives a full body shudder and a loud bleet, burying her face in her lover’s neck to muffle the sounds of her ecstasy. Mell seems to have no such compunctions with noise; she grinds her hips for a few seconds more, then howles at a truly ear-splitting volume.

The pair sags against one another and exchange sloppy kisses in the aftermath. Mel whispers something not meant for the camera that might be “I love you” before getting up on shaky legs and crossing to the camera.

The video ends before Judy has the chance to invade on any more of the private moment, and Judy wastes no time in setting her laptop off the bed.

She rolls onto her stomach, too turned on to drag this out. She lets the fingers of one paw sink into her while the other presses hard into her clit. She bites down on her pillow to stifle any sounds she might make. It takes less than forty-five seconds of rutting into the mattress before she’s coming. Her body shakes with it, trembles a way it hasn’t for so long. Her orgasm seems to stretch on and on.

Stress and her busy schedule have wound her body tight. This isn’t something that has crossed her mind very much since moving to the city, and as her body decompresses in the afterglow, she realizes it’s maybe something she’s needed.

The pull of sleep presses inexorably down on her as the endorphins flow, but she leans over the side of her bed. She quickly clicks the browser add-on she uses to download videos and saves this one for future reference.

That done, she curls up on her side without bothering to redress. Hre last thought, before she drifts off, is that it’s one in the morning, and she's going to be so screwed for work tomorrow.


	4. Chapter 4

“Wow,” Nick says, drawing out the word as Judy walks into the precinct. He looks her up and down in an obvious show. “You look like roadkill.”

“I didn’t-- didn’t--” A wide yawn contorts her words. “Didn’t sleep much,” she finishes.

“You? Little miss eight hours or bust?” He takes a sip of his coffee like a taunt.

All Judy can manage is a nod and a murmured “research”.

“Here,” Nick says. Nick takes one last sip of his coffee before pressing the paper cup into Judy’s hand. “I think you need this more than me for once.”

“T-thank you,” she says around another yawn as she follows him towards roll call.

Nick climbs on their chair first and offers her a paw up, which she gratefully takes. He squints at her in consideration. “Seriously, Carrots. You sure you’re good?”

Judy sighs. “Fine. I’ve just had a lot on my mind lately.”

“How ‘bout this: you, me, Mario’s, dinner?” he asks.

Judy’s heart pounds faster in her chest. She knows he doesn’t mean it as a date, but her heart doesn’t want to accept that piece of information. “I-- yes. That sounds perfect. After work?” she says, her mouth running away in an excited tumble of words. “Wait, what’s today? Damn, no. I can’t tonight.”

She can’t miss the cross-species support group she read about, not even for dinner with Nick. She’s worked herself up to doing his, and she’s not going to find an excuse to back out.

“Come on, Judes,” Nick weedles. “What’s more important that marinara sauce and cheese on a sub?”

“Stuff,” she says evasively. “I’ve got to be in the Rainforest District by seven tonight. Maybe tomorrow?”

Nick huffs. “Fine. But I’m holding you to that.”

The day passed in a haze of exhaustion after that. She and Nick are on ordinary patrol, and the lack of real challange makes the day more slower rather than faser. Every time Judy has to stand still for more than five minutes, her foot starts thumping.

Nick spends most of the day throwing her worried look when he thinks she’s not looking, and that makes it so much worse. She both wants to reassure him that she’s fine and tell him that she’s a big bunny who can handle herself.

She’s not entirely sure she believes that last part, though.

When her shift finally, miraculously ends, Judy is out the door before Nick can offer her another well-intentioned inquiry about her health and mental state. She gets on the first train to the Rainforest District and spends most of the ride trying not to thump anxiously.

It takes Judy less than fifteen minutes and only a little help from her phone to locate the community center. It takes another ten minutes of her circling the block before she works up the nerve to go in.

She’s still trying to psych herself up to ask the receptionist for direction when she sees it: a small poster board with glitter and stencil letters reading “Cross-Species Talks: Basement, 7 PM”. She sighs in relief and follows the arrow to a set of stairs.

The basement is filled with around twenty-five mammals, most college age, but a few older. Plastic chairs are set up in a series of widening circles, forcing all participants to look at each other. Judy quietly takes a seat in the outer ring of chairs, away from the group chatting in the center.

“I’ve never been to anything like this,” says an excited kuala, apparently to anyone who will listen. “I thought I was the only one for a really long time, you know?”

“I think a lot of us did,” says a leamer. “It’s not something people really talk about, you know?”

“That’s what this group is for,” says a familiar voice, “to provide a place where we can safely talk about our feelings and attraction.”

Judy cranes her neck to see around the giraffe in front of her. In the middle sits Oxy, her paws clasped politely in her lap. She’s immediately recognizable by the many silver rings and necklaces adorning her and the colors streaking her grey fur. Up close, the timberwolf is older than Judy first thought, in her late thirties at the youngest.

“Good evening, everyone,” she says, and the sparse chatter quiets. “My name’s Oxy Howle-Truffle. I’m the head of cross-species liaisons at the community center. I see a couple new faces tonight. If you’re comfortable, feel free to introduce yourself. A pseudonym is fine, if you aren’t ready to use your real name.”

A rustle goes around the room, and the other awkwardly quiet newcomers shift in their seats. Finally, the boisterous Kuala from before pipes up, “My name’s Eric. I’m a student from Saharah Central University, and this is the first time I’ve ever been to anything like this.” He gives a small wave. “Nice to meet you all.”

A murmur of welcome passes around the room, and for a moment it looks like Eric is going to be the only one willing to introduce himself. Judy takes a steadying breath. If she’s doing this, she’s doing this all the way.

“I’m--” Her voice comes out too high and nervous, so she clears her throat and tries again, faking a confidence she doesn’t feel. “I’m Judy. I’m an officer for the ZPD.”

She falls silent, not knowing what else to say. This time, the greetings are filled with a murmur of recognition. Oxy’s pleasent smile stays fixed to her face as she says, “It’s very nice to meet both of you.”

Oxy looks around the room like a benevolent queen taking stock of her subjects.

“Today’s topic for discussion is coming out as cross-species attracted,” she says. “Now, there’s still a bit of debate within the queer community as to whether it’s appropriate to use that term for heterosexual cross-species couples, but my personal stance is that it is.” A small smirk crosses her face. “In my experience, coming out as cross is just as daunting as coming out as gay. Any thoughts?”

“How do you feel about the movement vying for Cross mammals to be included within the queer community?” asks someone outside of Judy’s field of vision.

Oxy tilts her head from side to side, considering. At length, she says, “For me personally, the two are irrevocably intertwined. I’m queer, I’m attracted to women, and I’m cross. From my own observation, there seems to be a higher rate of cross-species attraction among those who identify as other than heterosexual.”

“This could merely be because the level of self-acceptance required by those mammals already has primed them to come out as cross more readily or there could be some genetic factor. No rigorous research has been dedicated to the matter up until now, so no one can say for certain.” she gives a small smile. “That being said, I think it’s really all a matter of personal perception of oneself. If you perceive yourself as queer, then that’s what matters.”

“How does coming out as cross differ from coming out as gay or bisexual?” asks a short tiger to Judy’s left. “I’m Tijal, by the way.”

Oxy looks around the room. “Does anyone else have any feelings on this? I don’t want to spend our hour lecturing-- I do enough of that in my day job. I want to hear what all of you think.”

Eric the Kuala raises his hand, and Oxy’s smile widens. “There’s no need to raise your hand, dear. Simply speak your mind.”

“I, well,” Eric starts. “I mean, it was pretty easy to come out as bi to my family. They’re pretty liberal, and a bunch of my parents’ friends growing up were gay. So that wasn’t much of a problem.” He takes a deep breath and forces himself to slow down. “Coming out as cross, though. That didn’t take that as well. I mean, they didn’t kick me out or anything, but it changed things.”

“I mean,” says the leamer. “I had about the same experience. I think it’s because my parents really had no frame of reference for what it meant to be cross.”

“What do you mean?” asks Tijal.

Judy clears her throat and takes a steadying breath. “I think she means that it’s not something they see,” she says. “My parents, well, they’re really rural. _Really_. But they at least know people who’re gay. My classmate Gideon turned out to be gay. They see gay characters on tv all the time. They may not exactly be familiar with it, but they know what it means.”

“How do you think thay’d take it? If someone they knew came out as cross, I mean,” Tijal asks, then adds hurriedly, “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Not at all” Judy gives a small laugh. “I doubt they even know what ‘cross’ means. I doubt they’d disown me or anything-- they’d probably just be really confused and worry about my safety.”

And somehow, talking about this-- about her rural parents and their narrow world still so full of love-- makes Judy feel like a weight has been lifter off her chest. She doesn't know if she’ll ever tell her parents about her attraction to other species, doesn’t even know if she’ll ever have a reason, but the knowledge that they wouldn’t abandon her for it makes everything seem easier.

The rest of the meeting goes much the same way, with Oxy directing conversation and occasionally adding thoughts of her own.

At 8:15, Oxy looks at the clock. “I think that’s all the time we have for tonight. Feel free to hang around; the community center is open until nine. Please be careful on your way home. If you feel unsafe walking alone, find someone who lives near you to travel with or call a taxi.”

A the group disbands, Judy is surprised to see Oxy making a beeline for her, a wide smile gracing her lips. “Do you happen to know Benjie Clawhauser at the ZPD?” she asks.

Judy boggles for a moment before saying, “Yes, he’s one of my good friends.”

Oxy nods. “That’s good to hear. Benjie is a fantastic man. Pity he couldn’t make it tonight.”

Judy furrows her brow. “He usually attends?”

“Oh dear, I thought you knew.” Oxy claps a paw over her mouth.

“I mean, I kind of guessed from a couple things he said, but I didn’t know for sure.”

“At the risk of saying to much, let me just say that he has been one of our regulars for many years. His partner isn’t too fond of public shows of pride, but even he makes an appearance from time to time.”

Judy nods, like the fact that Clawhauser’s partner isn’t a cheetah is something she knew already.

Apparently, Oxy’s sharp eyes see through her act. “You didn’t know about partner, did you?”

“No,” Judy admits. “I feel really awful that I didn’t actually. Why didn’t he mention it?”

“Don’t take it personally, dear. Benjie and I are of an age that we still fear losing friends and jobs should we be too open about our sexualities.”

“If I can ask, what is your job?” Judy says. “You mentioned lecturing.”

“I’m lucky-- I’m a professor of gender and sexuality at East Zootopia University. A bit of eccentricity is expected of a professor of such a liberal subject.” Oxy begins stacking chairs, and Judy automatically moves to help.

“I’ve got to admit,” Judy starts, “I’ve never really thought of myself as queer before tonight. Honestly, figuring all of this out is so new to me.”

“All of this being your own attractions?” Oxy asks.

“Yeah. I mean, I know I’m a older than most people figuring this out, but--”

Oxy turns to face her. “You’re never too old to learn about yourself, Judy.”

“I just-- I don’t know. I never really thought about romance,” Judy says. “I’ve had a few short flings with other rabbits over the years, but I never really thought much about the future in terms of relationships. When I did, I always saw myself with some faceless city rabbit. I never wanted a big waren like my parents.”

“Sometimes the expectations of others cloud our own perception of ourselves. You can to the city fairly recently, right?”

Judy nods.

“Sometimes putting distance between those expectations is what it takes to see yourself clearly, be it by moving to the city or leaving for college.” Oxy gestures around the empty room. “I always say that every mammal should live in Zootopia at some point in their life, but not so long that it hardens their hearts.”

She gives Judy a considering look, then smiles.

“I believe there is no chance of that with you, my dear.”


End file.
